Posted at 11:00 AM EST. Odds are subject to change.

Athletics +105 over Chicago

8:05 PM EST. Colin Rea (RHP – CHC) might be one of the most overvalued pitchers on today's board. The Cubs right-hander owns the worst expected ERA among the scheduled starters, and there is very little in the underlying profile that suggests better days are ahead. The swing-and-miss rate is weak, the hard-contact rate is elevated, the strikeout-to-walk profile is ordinary, and the groundball rate is nothing special. Rea has made nine starts this season and only two have qualified as pure quality starts. His 5-3 record looks respectable on the surface, but that's largely a product of receiving outstanding run support when Chicago's offense was firing on all cylinders.

Those days appear to be over. The Cubs have been in a prolonged offensive slump and are no longer bludgeoning opposing pitching the way they did earlier in the season. This is a team that has been trending in the wrong direction for weeks, and yet the market continues to price them as though nothing has changed. Chicago's offense has cooled dramatically, while the pitching staff continues to rely on smoke and mirrors in several spots.

Jeffrey Springs (LHP – ATH) is not being sold here as some massive pitching advantage. In fact, Springs and Rea are fairly comparable in terms of overall expectations. That's exactly the point. If these pitchers are in the same neighborhood, why are the Athletics being offered at a plus price? Oakland has been playing better baseball, while the Cubs continue to slide. The market is still giving Chicago credit for what it was earlier in the season rather than what it is today. With the Cubs in freefall and Rea carrying numbers that suggest significant regression risk, Oakland offers the superior value side as a live underdog.

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